10th Annual Chutzpah! Festival in Vancouver

As Aesthetica is making international ties from Australia, New Zealand and Japan through to the USA and Canada, I wanted to bring you details about one of the most exciting performing arts festivals in Canada.

Chutzpah! opening later this week in Vancouver runs from 4 March until 8 April, and promises to captivate audiences with a stunning repertoire of dance, music and theatre with a special pre-festival presentation of the Vancouver based dance troupe, Move: the company’s Legacy Repertory Project. This year, to celebrate the Festival’s 10th anniversary, Artistic and Managing Director Mary-Louise Albert has programmed a particularly exciting and eclectic selection of gifted artists from around the world and here in Canada.


Mary-Louise Albert commented: “This is a very special year for the Chutzpah! Festival. I’m so proud of how much the Festival has grown and matured over the past 10 years. The high calibre of music, dance, theatre and comedic artists that Chutzpah! is now able to present, offers Vancouver audiences a very diverse and dynamic experience. I’m particularly excited that we will be celebrating the Festival during the Olympic period as this also offers us the opportunity to show off Chutzpah! to the international stage”.

Kicking off the Festival is The Idan Raichel Project, who burst onto Israel’s music scene in 2002, changing the face of Israeli popular music and offering a message of love and tolerance. With an enchanting blend of African, Latin American, Caribbean and Middle Eastern sounds coupled with sophisticated production techniques and a spectacular live show, the Idan Raichel Project has become one of the most unexpected success stories in Israeli music history, regularly selling out shows worldwide.



For dance enthusiasts, Aszure Barton & Artists return to Chutzpah! with her full company of 9 dancers for a breathtaking and explosive repertoire show. The company will be presenting two works: Busk (2009) retains Aszure Barton's signature style of precise whole-body expression. Original, evocative music by Russian violist and composer Lev Ljova Zhurbin, along with a powerful selection of world sound (including choir music from Sweden's Orphei Drangar), enhance this dynamic piece. Blue Soup (2009) is a bubbling mosaic drawn from Aszure Barton's notable past creations. Dynamic, physical action and emotional honesty propelled by a score of global sound build a powerful, pulsating environment. “Full of surprise and humor, emotion and pain, expressed through a dance vocabulary that takes ballet technique and dismantles it to near-invisibility.” - The New York Times. Gallim Dance from New York with special guest Sidra Bell Dance New York will also enthral audiences. The work Gallim Dance will be presenting, I Can See Myself In Your Pupil, is a suite of dances set to the vibrant music of the Israeli band, Balkan Beat Box.

Theatre go-ers will enjoy a special treat with three great plays. Odysseus Chaoticis by Israel’s Ish Theater is a fantastic cabaret show based on the travels of Odysseus, King of Ithaca. Parts of the mythological Odyssey are intertwined into a story of an eccentric Italian family; a romantic-dreamer husband, his uptight dominating, but loving wife, a needy old Papa and their noisy newborn baby all packed like sardines in their small home. The day-dreaming husband escapes his mundane routine and takes an imaginative journey inspired by Homer’s Odyssey – this is one of the most entertaining hours you will ever spend in the theatre! “An amazing balance between sharp directing and the brilliant improvisational skills of the three clowns, each one of them bursting with talent” - M.Zur-Glozman, Ma'ariv Online.

Also the world premiere of Donald and Lenore - a wild and seductive play about survival set in an underground Tahitian Lounge by internationally renowned Vancouver based playwright Tom Cone, directed by David Bloom and starring Linda Quibel and Billy Marchenski.

With its interdisciplinary nature, Chutzpah! 2010 offers an insightful programme and vast range of performances.

To download a programme, purchase tickets or for further information visit www.chutzpahfestival.com

Images (c) the artists.

Photo 1: Steven Schreiber
Photo 2: David Lee

Win a pair of tickets to see Father of My Children - Winner of Cannes' Un Certain Regard

In the spirit of keeping our eyes peeled for what's happening in the arts world, we've just organised a fantastic prize for one lucky reader! As you know, if you read this blog regularly, I see the arts as interdisciplinary, flitting between the gallery, cinema and theatre. I have a serious commitment to film, and so, I was delighted to find out the one of Cannes' prize winning films (Un Certain Regard), Father of My Children would be opening nationwide from 5th March.



To celebrate the March 5th release of Le père de mes enfants/Father of my Children - We have a pair of tickets available to attend a Q&A screening on 3rd March with Director, Mia Hansen-Love.

The preview screening for the gentle drama, Father of my Children, will be held at the Cine Lumiere, London. The event will begin with a champagne reception at 7:30pm and will then be followed by the film’s screening at 8:30pm. After the screening the guests and winners will be invited to stay for an opportunity to put their questions about Father of My Children to the film’s director Mia Hansen-Love.

Father of My Children concentrates on Grégoire (de Lencquesaing) a happily married father of three and an independent film producer who somehow manages to juggle the never-ending demands of his company with his domestic responsibilities. Glued to his mobile and chain-smoking his way through meetings and crises, he maintains his sense of humour despite the incessant demands of his work. In addition to massaging artistic egos and keeping one step ahead of his bank, he reluctantly joins the family on an Italian holiday, but on his return, Grégoire finds he can no longer maintain any sane work/life balance. Wonderfully reminiscent of Truffaut’s Day for Night in it’s evocation of the world of European cinema.

For your chance to win just answer the following question:
What is the name of the director and film, who's featured in the current issue of Aesthetica Magazine?

Please send your answers to Alexis Smith at office@aestheticamagazine.com with Father of My Children marked in the subject line. Please send by 12pm, Tuesday 2 March. All correct entries will be added to prize draw and the winner selected at random.

Good luck!

Revenge and Familial Bonds: Katalin Varga & The Horseman

The theme of revenge and familial bonds are explored in two brutally honest new releases, Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland) and The Horseman (Steven Kastrissios). Katalin Varga was released on DVD and Blu-Ray yesterday, and tells the story of the title character, banished by her husband and her village with brutal ease and left with no other choice than to set out on a quest to find the real father of her son, Orbán. Taking Orbán with her under another pretence, Katalin travels through the Carpathians where she decides to reopen a sinister chapter from her past and take revenge. The hunt leads her to a place, she prayed eleven years prior, she would never set foot in again.



Filmed in Transylvania, the disturbing story of the past catching up with her attackers all-too-closely mimicks old-testament mentality of an eye-for-an-eye. As Katalin vows to seek retribution, the cycle continues as others follow her lead along the way. There are points in the film where the revelations of her disturbing past seem to draw the viewer to her side in agreement; but I felt there were a similar number of scenes that questioned Katalin’s extreme methods, and willed her to get herself and her son out of the situation she had put them in.


Perhaps the most impressive point of this film is the soundtrack. The intensity of the storyline is calmed almost to a similar point of tension, as the sparse song sung by Katalin and Orbán is a disturbing lament in the chaos. The beautiful shots of the countryside along their journey, coupled with lingering, almost still shots of their surroundings, counteract the brutality of the protagonist’s actions but adding an eerie atmosphere of strange, natural exquisiteness.


The Horseman, due to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on Monday (1 March), follows Christian, a father who is sent a horrifying pornographic video – featuring his recently-deceased daughter. Like Katalin and full of revenge, he soon spirals into a world of violence and recklessness as he follows the links through the industry with his unique methods of brutal questioning.




Driving through north Queensland to locate the final suspect, he reluctantly picks up Alice (Caroline Marohasy), an awkward young runaway and an unlikely bond develops. But as the crime is pieced together, an ugly truth is revealed that leads everyone down a dangerous path. The causes of Christian’s daughter’s murder make for a vicious and extreme set of characters, emphasizing the brutality of human vice. The Horseman is immersive, disturbing and brings out the very worst in those characters hidden behind the edges of a shady industry. At times the methods of questioning, carried out with such quiet, pent up fury by Christian and his trusty toolbox, make you wonder how could possibly have thought them up.


The Horseman is more of a revenge horror than Katalin Varga, due to its brutal, and graphic portrayal (think fishhooks and pliers), the latter is almost a meditation on what a violent past can do to a person, and the consequences, both living and dead, that come from that past. Also the opposite outcomes of the two titles seem to on-one-hand reward revenge, and on the other, illustrate the futility of such vendettas.

At the end of each of these films, I’m not sure whether we ever feel a sense of justice or whether there’s just a hell of a lot of mess that has been left behind, but the unsettling depictions of these characters throw up a lot of questions about humanity in the process.


Katalin Varga is available on DVD now on Artificial Eye Releases. For more information, please see click here

The Horseman is released on 1 March on DVD and Blu-Ray on Kaleidoscope Entertainment. For more information, please see www.thehorsemanfilm.com